A longer and richer tail
In a recent article published in the Harvard Business Review (n. 1-2 2008), university professor and forecaster Vito Di Bari predicts the appearance of the longer tail by 2015. Starting from Chris Anderson’s ground-breaking long tail concept, namely the grassroots diffusion of supply and demand on line, and the prevalence of “many niche items” as opposed to “few mass items”, Di Bari has hypothesized the growing density of the long tail concept, with users increasingly interested in specific, unique and local characteristics.
It is not difficult to see that within the next decade, the number of web users will progressively increase. However we will not see an increase in the number of skilled users, but rather the base level of web surfers will expand, users of the “Popular Web”, with a relatively low level of computer literacy but nonetheless possessing the technological devices necessary to gain access to the Web. A particularly telling example is the case of China, where there has been an 833.3% increase in the use of the Web from 2000 to today, but where the overall penetration of the Internet in the population reaches just 15.9%. This implies that the potential growth of China, and similarly that of many other Far Eastern nations, is enormous.
The increase in numbers of this type of web user will change the approach to the Web. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, “The growth rate of China's Internet user population has been outpacing that of the U.S., and China is projected to overtake the U.S. in the total number of users within a few years”. This means that alongside the language of global computer communications, namely English, local languages used by “Popular Web” users, such as Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Japanese, will also become more common.
According to eMarketer, By the end of 2008, Russia will be the second largest Internet market in Europe: Russia will have more than 40 million Internet users by the end of the year. Russia is projected to have nearly 43% of its population using the Web by 2012, up 72% from the 2007 level.
...And By 2012, nearly 50% of the world’s Internet population will live in the Asia-Pacific region. 
Global and local are therefore concepts that will interact in order to create glocal, a concept that is not new to anthropology, but that is less common when applied to the Web. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman reintroduced the concept of glocal – a term coined by Roland Robertson – in a theory proposing the necessity of combining global culture and planetary diffusion with local pockets of resistance capable of expressing typical habits, customs and languages.
For the travel industry, the combination of local and global conveys the idea of localization, which has a perfect correspondence with Di Bari’s proposal of the longer tail. Faced with Web users of low scholastic qualifications and interested predominantly in what is familiar to them (languages, habits, local products), for companies it is fundamental to propose glocal versions of their websites and products. Not just a simple translation of the original site, but rather a cultural and linguistic adaptation of the company’s image, communications and on-line marketing.
The longer tail therefore implies an approach based on local aspects to communicate a global travel brand and product online. In the space of just a few years, it will be necessary to come to terms with the Web’s cultural/ethnic evolution, which will further highlight that which is still at an initial phase. It will therefore become fundamental to modify language, and also visual communications, or, more in general, the look&feel of corporate hotel and travel websites.
In the tourism sector, the longer tail will be very marked and noticeable. Web users will use their own national search engines to look for international travel destinations, and they will expect to obtain information and products corresponding to their requirements, therefore in their own language, and with the same respective cultural approach. To summarize, glocal websites. Local websites, not translations, which can communicate with the user by means of a familiar language.
What is already important today (offering a website in different linguistic versions) will soon become fundamental: it will be essential to refine communications, entrusting it to glocal experts. Glocal, because they will have to be familiar with global marketing systems, and they will have to be able to adapt them to local situations by means of close cooperation with local resources (mother-tongue professionals, local experts…).
Some examples:
By 2012, the Internet market will be substantially different to what it is today, and it will be oriented particularly to linguistic scenarios differing from English, closely linked to the local situation. Consequently, it will be essential for any travel professional to communicate with his target in Chinese, Japanese or Russian, using various targeted strategies and optimizing ROI, avoiding the waste that would result from the compilation of messages that are culturally and linguistically distant from a segment of users with limited computer literacy and a highly glocal nature.
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